Hi. I recently came home to Halifax from my travels and studies in China. On my return Toronto and Halifax had just been hit with a snow storm so the airport was a little more heck tick than usual even for this time of year. Flights were backed up and luggage bags were no where to be found. I ended up arriving in Halifax at 11 pm and waiting until 1 am for bags to show up which they didn't. At this point the Halifax International Airport, who previously complained over the loud speaker that they were understaffed, told me and the many others still waiting for their baggage that no more bags were going to be released. Now my problem isn't that the airport was in a jam but that they are telling me that they don't have enough people for the job. It's winter, close to Christmas and everyone knows that there are tons of bags coming into the airport. Did someone forget to call in for some extra workers? I was there for two hours and if they wanted to pay me 20 dollars an hour I would've helped them throw some bags around if I thought it would help. Hell, I would have done it for free if I thought I was going to get my bag. On top of the airports understaffed issue they also have a organizational problem too. Or maybe they are connected. But all the bags in the airport were spread all over the place. There were no piles of certain flights baggage in certain spots and baggage from the same flight seemed to be coming out on all of the three conveyor belts that the small baggage claim room has. Also I was there for two hours waiting for the luggage that had been said was about to be placed on one of the carousels which it never was however the same bag was going around and around until some of waitees took some initiative and made some room for our bags that were never to come. Anyway to finish up it would have been nice if the airport just admitted they were backed up and told us a bit earlier that we might not get our luggage and that the best thing might be just to go home and check back in later. Instead they cried understaffed and under prepared.

One cool thing about the situation was the amount of complaints you heard amongst the people waiting. Sarcastic comments, zingers and plain outright bad mouthing! There was a lot of tension and It felt like at any minute a riot could break out.

BaglessMan